Last Part
Sydney Bristow sits in the shadow of a corner and stares into space. How can anyone go through so many feelings in such a short span of time? This morning, she had felt that something was off. Something was going to happen. There was a reason that she came to this room…the one that he would be in.
I know that we’ll meet again
Fate has a place and time
She’s all cried out. She thinks back to that day. Every second is etched in her memory forever. His hurtful words. How he kept distancing himself from her. That wasn’t him. It wasn’t him at all. If only she had been more observant…she would have seen it. Through the false words, she could have seen his struggle. The way he wouldn’t look at her. The empty and helpless expressions on his face. The way he let her explode into his arms. The crack in his voice when she dared him to tell her he didn’t love her. The whole time he had been pretending. How could she have missed it?
Her eyes search the room and see the wilting flowers from the last time she was here. She tilts her head and notices that the vase is only half filled. She had never finished putting all the flowers in. His groaning and soft pleading had made her body freeze that day, and she never returned to room 470 until today. She swallows a lump in her throat as she imagined hearing his apologies from that morning. He was talking to her. Unconsciously, he wanted to explain everything. But how could she have known? Sydney covers her face with her hands and lets out a regretful sigh. She feels her puffy eyelids throbbing against her fingertips.
Like Dr.Zhivago
All my love I’ll be sending
And you will never know
The murmuring in her head slowly becomes louder. His voice seems to shift from echoes in the far distance into clearer groans coming from inside the room. Her eyes flutter open as she realizes that the sounds are actually real. They are coming from the opposite corner. After hours of agonizingly waiting, he is finally waking up. By slightly lifting the arms of the chair, she inches towards his bed. Quietly, she settles the chair down while keeping her eyes fixed on him the whole time. She sees his face change from one of peaceful sleep to one of anxiety as he regains consciousness. She’s seen that familiar worried face of concern numerous times before.
As Vaughn slowly opens his eyes, they are greeted with a blurred image of his angel. He blinks a couple of times to make sure he’s not dreaming. She is still there. Whenever he dreams of her, she is always smiling back at him. But this time, her face is sad. That rationalization tells him that this HAS to be real. After a long hesitation, he gets enough energy to ask…
“ Do you hate me?”
She does not respond right away. With a sigh, she looks down at her fingers.
“ Syd . . . ” he calls out softly asking her to say something.
“ You scared me,” she whispers back equally as soft. “ Again . . .”
“ I’m sorry.” They both look down at her trembling hands.
“ I thought I lost you for real. And this time it was my fault,” she admits sadly.
“ What?! No,” he is quick to tell her otherwise.
“ If I hadn’t gotten you all worked up, you wouldn’t . . .”
He shakes his head fervently. “No. Don’t say that. You didn’t do anything. This . . .” He points around the hospital room. “ All this . . .” He hits the side of the bed in frustration. “ It wasn’t in anyone’s control.”
“ When did you find out?”
“ Two days before we raided . . .” He stops to think of the irony.
“ SD-6?” she finishes for him, and bites her bottom lip. “ That’s why you acted the way you did . . . ” She lifts her head to look at him. She wants to see and hear the truth from him.
There is no use in denying the truth anymore. “ I wanted . . .”
“ To push me away?”
“ I didn’t think . . .”
“That I could handle it?” defensiveness in her tone. Even now, she can’t help but interrupt him.
“ No. I knew you could. I just didn’t think you should have to…” His words touch right through to her heart. Thank goodness she is already sitting because she feels her legs go weak.
“ You always do that. You know?”
His eyebrows furrow to show that he doesn’t know.
“ You always try to make things easier for me. What about you?”
“ What about me . . .” He has clearly never thought about himself in this whole ordeal. She has been and always will be top priority. These months have been hard, but what got him through was hoping that she’d move on.
So you can get on with your life
I’ve got to be cruel to be kind
“ What did YOU want?”
What about him? What did he want? He didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew what he didn’t want.
“ I didn’t want you to have to watch another person slowly slip away to nothing,” he looks at her helplessly.
“ So you thought you would just shatter everything I ever knew about him in one meeting?” She raises her voice.
“ It is better than seeing you come to this place everyday with hope and then leaving alone with frustration.”
“ That won’t happen,” she states confidently.
“ Even you, the strongest woman I know, will slowly be dragged down until you can’t take it . . . ” he stops to regain some composure.
“ Now that I know, I am going to stay.” She sits up straight in her chair.
“ Do you know how hard it is to worry about when it’ll be the last day?”
“ You underestimate me,” she sits up straight in her chair.
“ Syd . . . listen . . .” he sighs.
“ No! You listen…all those times that I went off on dangerous missions, you never knew for sure if I would come back. You didn’t know when it would be that last time either. But never once did you give up and think that I wouldn’t make it.”
“ I . . .”
“ No! Listen. All those times that I wanted to break down, you were there. You were my guardian angel. You were the one that gave me strength. You were the one I needed. You think you’re the only one that can do those things?”
Vaughn’s inside start churning as he lets her ramble on.
“Why can’t I be those things for you?” she asks plain and simple.
“ I think visiting hours are over. The nurses will make you go home…”
“ Then I’ll be back tomorrow and the day after that…” She crosses her arms and sits back in her chair as if saying she is here to stay until he agrees to let her back in his life.
He lets out a huge sigh. “ I don’t have the energy to fight with you about this…”
“ Then just . . . surrender,” He looks into her eyes. They are so much stronger than his own. So strong that he sees himself giving in. “ Just . . . surrender” She says it so softly, it has a calming and hypnotic effect…
* * * * * * * * * * *
Vaughn slowly wakes up, and he becomes aware of a heavy weight pressed against his right side. His eyes flutter open and he looks down to find her head resting against his right hand and lower arm.
Sometime during the night, she had moved her chair close against the edge of the bed. When she noticed his hand twitching slightly, it was only natural to reach out her own to cover his. After watching him sleep for sometime, she began to ease into a calmer state as well. She let her head droop down and land lightly against his side. She thought she would only close her eyes for just a second. But it was not long before a beautiful peaceful sleep completely took over.
He feels her soft rhythmic breathing against his palm, which tickle him slightly. He fights the urge to move his fingers for he doesn’t want to wake her. His heart warms as he realizes that she has stayed this whole time. Even though he doesn’t want her to sacrifice anything for him, he can’t help but feel happy to have this amazing woman care for him even after all that has happened. He thinks about everything she said about letting her be there for him like all the times he had been there for her. Is it so difficult? They were both miserable for the last seven months. Can anything be worse than what they felt during that time? He honestly doesn’t know.
He sighs again as he brings his free arm over to touch her hair. He feels the soft strands through his fingers, and a wave of longing washes through him. To suppress the feeling, he quickly retracts his hand from her hair, and then immediately curses himself as he sees her begin to stir from her sleep.
Sydney opens her eyes to find she is staring right at the lines on his hands. She senses his wakeful eyes watching her and opens her mouth.
Quietly she whispers, “ You surrender?”
After a long silence, he whispers back, “ I don’t know.”
She shifts her head over a little off of his hand and draws her arm up. As she traces the lines on his hands with her finger, she says, “ Remember that night on the pier when I grabbed your hand for the first time?”
“ mmm hmm,” he answers back.
“ Remember what you said before that?”
“ Some of it . . .” he tries to think back on that night.
“ I remember everything. You told me that I can’t let darkness take over and that when I’m at my absolute lowest, most depressed…that I could always call you. That works both ways you know.” She lets go of his hand and lifts her body up to search for his face.
“ Let me be here for you?” she pleads with her desperate eyes. His mouth becomes painfully dry as he senses his resolve on keeping her away quickly diminishing to nonexistence.
In a hoarse voice he finally gives in, “ Okay . . .”
Her eyes widen and her mouth slowly forms a smile. She moves from her chair and sits on the bed to get closer to him.
She grabs one of his hands and rubs the back with her thumb. “ We’ll get through this,” she assures him.
He squeezes her hand tighter and says, “ Syd . . . but if I don’t . . .”
She doesn’t let him finish. Her hand instantaneously goes up to cover his mouth silencing his worry. “ Don’t say it . . . Life isn’t that cruel.”
He blinks a couple of times to show her his understanding. He takes her hovering hand in his and presses his lips into her palm. With his other hand, he reaches for the side of her dress and tugs gently drawing her closer. He notices that it’s the same blue dress that she wore that day at the warehouse and stops his movements. Just as she is about to let herself be pulled into him, she sees his sudden hesitation. They both stare down at her dress. Her breathing quickens as she thinks that the memory is too painful for him.
After being still for what seems like minutes, he begins to move his hand up and down the fabric of the dress. He swallows down the lump in his throat and says, “ That day . . .” As she is about to pull back, he holds on. “ . . . did you wear this for me?”
Her breath catches as she does a double take on what he said. She is completely surprised that she can’t form any words. All she does is nod her head slowly. Yes. It was for him. No more professionalism between them. Up and down she nods her head as she resumes breathing again.
He lets go of her dress and brings his hand up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. His hand then travels along her jawline to caress her face. As his thumb traces her defined cheekbone, he whispers, “ I love it . . . thanks.”
As if someone suddenly has opened the window to let light in once again, a whole new set of emotions set in. She feels her eyes water up again. But this time, they are not tears of sadness. They are ones of hope and joy. He looks into her eyes as she lowers her head just inches from his face. She rests her forehead against his and squeezes her eyes shut. At the same time that her lips make contact with his own, he feels two tears lightly fall from her lashes down onto his face. He has never felt more alive. The tears are like a cleansing. From her, he will find his strength. For her, he will not let darkness take over.
The End
A/N: Thank you to everyone who read this and responded. Your comments mean a lot. I know many, if not all of you, want to know what Vaughn had that resulted him to be sick. Please accept my apology that I am not able to come up with a logical illness. I tried really hard, but have come to realize that it isn’t WHAT he has that is essential to the story but rather that he believes has something and he didn’t want to be a burden to Sydney. Thank you for reading and understanding. = )